[onlooker]

Scientists have identified 9 boundaries in regards the Environment and Biosphere in which we live according to them we have already passed 4 of them into what they call "uncertainty". Here is link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html
A study like this should arouse the interest and alarm of anyone who reads it. We are changing the Earth in ways that may make it unsuitable for higher life forms. Pretty sobering but as I like to say it is the reality.

[GHung]

More of these articles are appearing in mainstream publications. Problem is, most industrial age folks are so intent on distancing themselves from the real environment (see Microsoft's new "Hololens"), they'll view these warnings like they view the latest disaster movie; withdraw into their virtual/artificial worlds and pretend it's only happening 'out there somewhere'.

How long have Guy McPherson and others been sending this message?

[Peak_Yeast]

I agree with GHung. People that I show these types of information to - first disputes it violently - and say that the information comes from untrustworthy sources. When I show them the sources - the ones they normally accept they say: mmmmmmm but there has been so many people crying doom - and then they forget about it. I know this because I have been talking to them some time later - and everything is forgotten completely.

Its not really worth to mention these things to people - since even if you prove you are right with the sources they trust they still think you are paranoid delusional worhty of wearing 10 tinfoil hats.

[onlooker]

Yes in a way some part of me envies them they could go about their lives oblivious to the calamities awaiting. So they spare themselves the worry. Me I am no longer worried in so much as I have faced squarely my own demise in this lifetime and I believe existence goes on after death. But I digress. Whatever it going to happen soon, I strongly believe is now beyond human intervention. Either nature will deal out her penalties, alien intervention will occur or we will obliterate ourselves. Just observing so my moniker is fitting ONLOOKER.

[ennui2]

Yes in a way some part of me envies them they could go about their lives oblivious to the calamities awaiting. So they spare themselves the worry. Me I am no longer worried in so much as I have faced squarely my own demise in this lifetime

We all face our own demise sooner or later. We'd just like to cling to the idea we'll die of old age in our beds after a life well lived and not spending our waning days living a dystopian nightmare.

But the above statement reflects the ultimate convergence point that denialists and doomers will have, whether we like it or not. "Worry" ultimately doesn't solve anything.

There is the famous saying, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." Ultimately there's a fine line between being blissfully ignorant of doom in which you go about your daily affairs and a final point of acceptance about doom where you...well...go about your daily affairs, just with the doom pushed to the back of your mind.

It simply doesn't serve any more purpose to fixate on doom than it does for a terminal cancer patient to waste what little time he or she has left running off to Mexico to get alternative treatments and what have you.

If some people still think there is some serious mitigation that could take place, and not just be technically but politically feasible, it actually makes it more worrisome because you're placed in a Cassandra-like position of trying to convince everyone to change gears and if you don't then you saddle yourself with all this guilt over not doing enough to help. But if you just concede that the problem can't be solved then it frees yourself up to just tend your own garden.

In my case, anytime a doomer/malthusian article were to be put onto a major news outlet, I would kind of grin inside and think "Great, now maybe people will listen!" But this is ultimately a fool's game, because these articles come and go and make no waves, so it leaves you that much more disenchanted than you would be if you just stopped googling for MSM recognition of doom.

Take the GOP now admitting that global warming is real. Big deal? Of course not, because the new party position is that it's not our fault, and if it's a natural phenomenon, then there's nothing we can or should do any differently. Can you think of a better way to pivot than that? You still can push for BAU without looking like a flat-earther.

The last stop on the denial track, at risk of repeating myself, is for the above "it's a natural phenomenon" people to kind of shrug their shoulders and say "OK, I guess you were right, but now it's too late so we should all kind of make ourselves comfortable before TEOTWAWKI."

The last thing people will do is say accept any personal responsibility or seek any atonement. That fantasy doomers have will never come to pass.

[onlooker]

Great reply Ennui. I can only add that the key point is that the predicament is now beyond human agency. Some people no matter what delay or deny taking responsibility or action as you said. Others feel they must act even if they act alone and even though they deep down may acknowledge the futility. I never felt either course was of any avail. I would have acted if I thought society as a whole was mobilizing. Now after all I have read and discovered, I believe even if that were to happen it still would be futile. So I now just accept in a peaceful and hopeful manner. Our mortality can be ultimately the source of our greatest comfort if one believes as I do that whatever lies beyond is better than what this existence holds.

[careinke]

We all face our own demise sooner or later. We'd just like to cling to the idea we'll die of old age in our beds after a life well lived and not spending our waning days living a dystopian nightmare.

I don't know, a dystopian nightmare may have its upsides.

[ROCKMAN]

"The last stop on the denial track, at risk of repeating myself, is for the above "it's a natural phenomenon"... A valid point but I would call it the second to last stop. The last stop is: "Yes, it's being caused by man. But some will pay the price while other benefit from the continued burning of fossil fuels. Too bad for those folks but it is either them or us".

As it has always been. During WWII we intentionally bombed cities (including two nuclear devices) targeting civilians Most agreed it was a terrible thing to do but it was "either them or us". If the "civilized world" could justify those actions I'm sure it can deal with the guilt of causing some coastline loss and nasty weather.

[dinopello]

As it has always been. During WWII we intentionally bombed cities (including two nuclear devices) targeting civilians Most agreed it was a terrible thing to do but it was "either them or us". If the "civilized world" could justify those actions I'm sure it can deal with the guilt of causing some coastline loss and nasty weather.

No analogies are perfect but that's a pretty poor one. Back then, with new weapons and tactics that's how wars were fought and back then wars had an end, and after the end we help make it all better and Dresden is now a beautiful and livable city.

There is a large component of uncertainty in our ecological habitat destruction. Where will it end, what will be affected ? I don't think we know for sure. Sure, the wealthy can hang on longer and can afford to retreat to (or more likely conquer) the remaining habitable areas if there are any but willfully destroying the human habitat when one is oneself a human is a whole different ball game than trying to win a war as quickly as possible.

Having said that, I kind of agree that in the end people will shrug and just say oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

[Pops]

But there is a 3rd way besides worry or denial.

[Lore]

Having said that, I kind of agree that in the end people will shrug and just say oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

People always say that when it's someone else's cookie. As we approach real hard limits there will be a lot of incrimination and finger pointing along with panic and a boat load of frustration and fury.

The sad part isn't the demise of the individual, but us a a species taking most everthing else down with us. There is no historical comparison for it.

[potterpaul]

Yeah,

That's the sad part, about us taking down a bunch of the other life forms on the planet. Well, what are we gonna do? I've been aware of this impending build up and crash for at least 30 years. I always tried to live very frugally, have no kids, live in a small place built back then. The iron juggernaught rolls on.

It's hard to not get depressed, but there are lots of good things to do. I have a garden and make pots.

potterpaul

[onlooker]

Sometimes it make you wonder if all of us humans could have been content to live simple lives like you Potter maybe we would not have gotten to this point. Oh well.

[Peak_Yeast]

Even in a local collapse - this is what happens in almost no time:

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015 ... d-wildlife

I think this shows us that without factory food production the remaining wildlife will be exterminated very rapidly.

IOW: We are far into overshoot with respect to natural support for our numbers.

[ennui2]

I want to start a fresh thread on Limits to Growth so we can actually debate an issue seriously for a change.

I would like it if people posting in this thread promise to keep it on-point and not lapse into mocking, sarcasm, straw-men, ad-homs, etc...

Let's just try to have a genuine debate on the accuracy of the Limits to Growth model in 2015+.

[Newfie]

OK, I'm in. I posted on the old thread, and linked this below article.

Sounds to me like the evidence they are pretty near correct is pretty darn good.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... g-collapse

[Outcast_Searcher]

So from my read of this interesting article, the problem is on a scale from somewhere from multiple decades (some of the charts) to the next hundred years or so (mentioned in the text).

Given some of the comments I have seen recently about losing members, the public not taking the Peak Oil community seriously, etc, wouldn't trying to focus on a (roughly) realistic timeframe that we are dealing with be a good thing? Planning and acting to change serious things or deal with big things (i.e. like a career) is much more realistically and constructively done in terms of decades -- not short term, knee-jerk emotional actions, IMO.

[dolanbaker]

I posted this elsewhere, but it fits in well here.
A classic limits to growth symptom, a bit like a car in the wrong gear can't accelerate without stalling and the driver refused to drop a gear or two to maintain the same speed rather than speeding up!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/ ... P820150602

It may be impossible for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates until the rest of the world economy improves, Fed board member Lael Brainard said on Tuesday, in the most direct acknowledgement yet of how weak global markets could handcuff the U.S. central bank.

Brainard, who is hyper-attentive to the impacts of globalization given her prior role as head of international affairs at the U.S. Treasury, sketched out a world in which a strong dollar, weak overseas demand, and even Chinese wage rates were holding back the U.S. recovery and potentially slowing the Fed's progress towards more normal monetary policy.

[dolanbaker]

Looks like globalization is going into reverse, according to this article. Or simply consumers maxed out!

http://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-31661078

Big macroeconomic changes happen slowly, sometimes they aren't clearly visible until years later.

We may currently be living through a structural change in the global economy as big as any since World War II without fully realising it.

The world economy may be becoming less integrated, with one of the important drivers of globalisation swinging into reverse.

This week the Dutch Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis released its latest estimates of world trade.

This widely-followed measure showed that world trade grew by 3.3% in 2014, that's up from 2.7% in 2013 and 2.1% in 2012 but still well below the long term average of growth of 5%.

Global trade grew strongly from the late 1970s until 2008 when the global recession caused it to collapse.

It rebounded strongly as the global economy recovered in 2010 and 2011 but since then trade growth has been weak.

Before the crisis world trade generally grew faster than world GDP, so trade as a share of world output rose.

Since the recession, world trade has been sluggish and outpaced by growth. As a share of global GDP, trade has been falling.

In other words, on one important measure the world economy is becoming less integrated, as a share of world output, fewer goods and services are crossing borders.